How to work out at night and not be too wired to sleep

Flickr/Nathan Rupert The INSIDER Summary:

Working out late at night can sometimes mean you're so wired you'll never be able to fall asleep.

Eating late night meals and crazy schedules can affect your sleep pattern, make sure to eat your last meal before the sun sets and no longer than 12 hours before your first meal of the next day.

Once your routine is down, you should be able to sleep like a baby no matter what time you workout.

It's the ultimate workout catch-22. You don't have time to fit in a workout in the morning, but leaving it until later means you're too amped up to go to sleep on time — causing you to sleep in and miss any chance of an early workout.

But postponing your workouts until later shouldn't mean you'll be wired all night. According to sleep researcher, Charles A. Czeisler, all you need to do is adjust your eating schedule slightly — and plan ahead.

There are two key tenets to getting a full night sleep — maintaining a routine and eating before sundown, as late night meals and an erratic schedule both affect your circadian rhythm causing sleep disruptions. What this means in practice is eating your your last meal of the day before the sun sets — and no longer than 12 hours before your first. So if you eat breakfast at 9am, dinner is at 9pm, with your mealtimes adjusted accordingly on days when you want to fit a workout in.

Once you get your routine down, there's no reason you won't sleep like a baby, even after a particularly intense workout session. As Czeisler says, "exercise in the evening does not disturb sleep and can even promote sleep a little bit." Sorry to everyone who was using bedtime as an excuse to avoid exercising.

In other news, here are 15 fitness tips from Adi Gillespie, personal trainer to a Saudi Royal.